Chapter 54

53、The Imperial Consort Nursing a Child

The sky seemed much darker than before.

A chilling wind swept through the hills and woods, making the tree branches rustle.

In the shivering wind, mist faintly rose.

Bai’s father hunched his shoulders, scanning the surroundings; seeing Zhou Chang still staring at the sudden black stele, he couldn’t help asking, “What does this stele say?”

In the empty darkness, even his own voice startled him.

He cautiously observed all around, fearing his sudden speech might disturb the dreadful spirits lurking in the shadows.

Zhou Chang read the inscription on the stele several times; hearing Bai’s father’s question, he paused, then replied, “This stele confirms that a Qing dynasty imperial consort was buried in the Bai family graveyard.”

But that Qing imperial consort was not buried alone.

A Qing emperor’s head was buried with her.”

“A head…”

Bai’s father murmured, glanced at Bai Xiue beside him, then whispered, “When you mention an emperor’s head, I suddenly recall something…”

The mountain wind slipped quietly past the three of them.

The Bai family graveyard grew colder under the night, making Bai’s father’s low voice tremble like a candle flickering in the cold wind: “Xiue’s grandfather… my old father-in-law… once worked for the Jing Bai clan, building walls for their ancestral hall on the high slope.”

One night he returned home after working until midnight, fell ill immediately, and never recovered—laying comatose day after day.

Only on his deathbed did he regain consciousness.

He told us that night he returned late because it was pitch black, yet the Jing Bai clan still refused to feed them, forcing them to keep working. Starving, he climbed over the wall into their ancestral hall.

He meant to steal some offerings, but once inside, he lost his bearings—walking through one door after another, deeper and deeper, until he reached the innermost small shrine.

He said the small shrine held no ancestral tablets or offerings—only a woman wearing a large hat adorned with flowers, holding a swaddled infant, nursing it.

The woman sat atop a high altar, her body turned sideways to him; he couldn’t see the child’s face inside the swaddle.

Her clothing wasn’t cheap—it was clearly silk brocade, embroidered with many festive patterns.

Yet the fabric’s hue clearly showed great age; the embroidery had faded badly.

When she saw him enter, she wasn’t frightened—still nursing the child, she didn’t lift her head, but asked him a question.

Xiue’s grandfather said her voice sounded as if pinched tight—thin and shrill—but when he strained to listen, he could only grasp the general meaning; he couldn’t make out the exact words she spoke.

She seemed to be asking Xiue’s grandfather: “What do you want?”

Xiue’s grandfather thought the woman was unnatural—he dared not answer. Who nurses a child atop an ancestral altar?

Besides, the Jing Bai clan’s layered ancestral halls were strange enough already.

So he quickly retreated from the small shrine.

But who knew—he had barely stepped out when the outer hall changed. In the blink of an eye, it became a tomb built of massive stone slabs!

In the center of the tomb stood a bronze coffin.

The woman who had been nursing the child on the altar now sat atop the coffin lid.

This time she faced Xiue’s grandfather directly; her faded silk robe resembled the garments unearthed from ancient graves.

She now had her chest bared, revealing half her torso.

That half of her chest and abdomen glowed golden-yellow, like molten gold.

From within the swaddle protruded the head of an adult man, wearing a skullcap—and he was suckling!

The swaddle contained only that adult man’s head!

The milk drawn from the woman flowed like liquid gold, gradually staining the gray-white skin of the head a golden hue.

The head in her arms turned golden as cast metal, but her chest turned gray-white; at the same time, Xiue’s grandfather smelled a stench of decay rising from the woman.

He was now too terrified to even run.

He saw the woman still cradling the golden head in one arm, while with her other hand she lifted a jade bowl from beside the coffin lid.

The bowl was filled with a red-gold liquid; she drank it all at once, and the stench vanished instantly—her chest gradually regained its golden hue, and the head in the swaddle pressed closer again.

Xiue’s grandfather said that as he watched her drink the liquid, he heard the cries of many girls.

But he had no time to ponder it—he only saw that after drinking, her face turned as bright red as a blooming flower, and she asked Xiue’s grandfather again: “What do you want?”

Her grandfather dared not answer her—he frantically searched for an exit from the tomb.

The woman didn’t stop him; she merely sat atop the coffin, endlessly asking him what he wanted.

When he found the tomb’s exit and leaned in to crawl through, the woman, swaddle in arms, had somehow appeared behind him.

She said nothing; the head in the swaddle emerged, its golden face staring blankly at Xiue’s grandfather with sightless eyes, and that thin, indistinct voice came again from her lips: “What do you want?”

“Let me use your body?”

The golden head’s mouth opened and closed; each time it opened, Xiue’s grandfather thought he saw rows of ancestral tablets pressed beneath its tongue.

Many of the inscriptions on the tablets were unfamiliar to him—but he recognized one character in the corner: ‘Wen’…”

Bai’s father’s gaze flickered slightly; he sighed and added, “After Xiue’s grandfather saw that golden head, when he awoke again, he was already lying in bed at home.”

For days afterward, he remained dazed, muttering nonsense, until one night he breathed his last…”

Bai Xiue listened intently, murmuring to herself: “Were those things her grandfather described a dream—or did they truly happen?”

She lifted her face, gazing toward the high slope where the Jing Bai ancestral hall stood.

The towering hall, painted dark red on its outer walls, glowed even blacker under the glow of countless red lanterns.

It looked like a wound in the night, oozing thick, continuous blood.

Bai Xiue’s heart jolted; she blinked—and where she had been looking, the high slope was gone, and so were the red lanterns illuminating the Jing Bai ancestral hall.

Only a hollow, pitch-black void remained.

She quickly lowered her gaze—and suddenly realized the black stele had vanished from right before her eyes.

Her father and Zhou Chang still stood beside her.

Zhou Chang heard a faint rustling in the darkness.

Like someone tiptoeing lightly, the whisper of silk robes brushing together, the chime of jade ornaments.

The sound came and went—sometimes silent, then returning again.

Zhou Chang could not locate its source; he scanned the darkness long and hard, then lowered his gaze, fixing his eyes motionless—just as the rustling resumed around him, Zhou Chang suddenly lifted his eyes—

His gaze swept the dark where the sound had come from—still nothing.

But in that fleeting glance, his peripheral vision caught a woman in an ancient silk robe, holding a swaddle, standing silently beside him.